When Amanda Holden woke up in her Cotswolds home on Saturday morning, she let out one of her famous cackles.
What made her laugh wasn’t the interview she gave to the Ny Breaking’s Weekend magazine in which she branded Sharon Osbourne “bitter and pathetic” over “dissident” talent show impresario Simon Cowell.
No, the source of her hilarity was Ms. Osbourne’s lengthy response on Instagram. In it, she described 53-year-old Ms Holden’s comments as “ill-informed”, “sycophantic” and “factually incorrect”.
To recap, for those unaware of this feud between two of Britain’s best-known TV talent judges, it started when Ms Osbourne and her X Factor co-star Louis Walsh appeared on Celebrity earlier this year Big Brother.
During the ITV show, the pair cattily belittled their former boss Cowell: Walsh for his apparent use of Botox and Ms Osbourne for allegedly not renewing her contract. The star, who was reportedly paid £500,000 for just over a week’s work in the Big Brother house, said she was ‘furious’ that it meant she was missing out on another big TV appearance.
Ms Holden, meanwhile, has been a close ally of Cowell since 2006, when he hired her as a fellow judge on the upcoming series Britain’s Got Talent. So it was her turn to become enraged when she learned of Walsh and Mrs. Osbourne’s indiscretions.
Amanda Holden has broken her silence on Sharon Osbourne, labeling her an ‘ill-informed sycophantic’. The photo shows the couple in 2014
Amanda Holden has been a close ally of Cowell since 2006, when he hired her as a fellow judge on the upcoming series of Britain’s Got Talent
“I hated seeing certain people on a reality show insulting Simon – he’s the person who gave them all the opportunities, gave them a lot of money and had a lifestyle that they probably wouldn’t have had,” Ms Holden told Weekend Magazine.
‘It’s bitter and sad. It was like Cinderella with her two sisters in the background: just stabby, stabby, stabby.’
Ms Osbourne is not known as a cowering violent woman, and came out swinging as soon as she read Ms Holden’s words in the early hours of Saturday morning. Her personal assistant alerted her to the interview when the MailOnline version appeared as a Google notification on her phone. From her £10million mansion in Beverly Hills, Ms Osbourne, once again apparently ‘furious’, began writing her response. The result was a 450-word screed, written by herself, not vetted by her PR guru Gary Farrow, and posted to both Twitter and Instagram with the help of a young member of her team.
Ms Osbourne explained that she had been an executive in the music industry for decades before Cowell started his small screen empire of various talent shows.
In a criticism of Holden’s husband, Chris Hughes, Cowell’s manager at talent agency YMU, Ms Osbourne began: ‘Amanda, I am responding to your interview with the Ny Breaking on April 12. “I respect the fact that you feel the need to defend your good friend and employer, Simon Cowell, who is also your husband’s employer, so I have read.”
Ms Osbourne went on to claim that Cowell ‘NEEDED ME for musical credibility on X Factor’, adding: ‘I delivered for him and together we all made a great team’.
“The truth is, you don’t know me, Amanda, or any of my close friends. You know nothing about my family history in the music industry, my achievements, the artists I’ve worked with, the shows I’ve produced and my global celebrity.
“Unlike you, Sharon Osbourne’s brand is known worldwide. There are many countries where I could work if I wanted to, but I don’t have the ambition or the time for that.’
It’s at this point that Mrs. Osbourne gets particularly personal, bragging, “Before you were born, I lived in a mansion in Beverly Hills and I still do and I still have my estate in England.”
Ms Osbourne, 71, managed the likes of Queen and Motorhead before appearing in seven series of the X Factor and six seasons of Cowell’s US show American’s Got Talent. In her response to Ms Holden, she suggests she has been paid more for her appearances on X Factor than Holden has been paid from Britain’s Got Talent. Her increased earnings, she said, were spent on expensive designer handbags.
As if the letter itself wasn’t enough, friends of Ms Osbourne warned the row could get worse if Ms Holden fights back.
“Then you see Sharon bringing up things about Amanda, like the fact that she shows off herself on Instagram.
‘Sharon thinks Amanda is a real lady and she is not afraid to go back for more. There will only be one winner,” they warned.
Amanda had previously called Sharon and Louis ‘bitter and pathetic’ after Simon (pictured last week) gave them ‘a lot of money and a lifestyle they probably wouldn’t have had’
Ms Osbourne further claimed that Cowell ‘NEEDED ME for musical credibility on X Factor’, adding: ‘I delivered for him and together we all made a great team’
While many a celebrity would cower under their covers, terrified by Osbourne’s trademark acid tongue, Ms. Holden told friends that she “stands by every word” and that she finds Osbourne “terrible” for criticizing Cowell so publicly.
“Amanda doesn’t care, she will always have Simon’s back and if she did the interview again she would say the same thing,” says a friend of the star.
‘They are friends and she is loyal to him. Amanda doesn’t want anyone to feel sorry for her because of Sharon’s reaction; she doesn’t whine at home. She’s glad Sharon noticed because she meant every word.
‘Yes, Sharon was successful before she did the X Factor, but Simon paid her a lot of money and gave her years of work. Amanda just thinks you shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you.’
The two women have known each other for years, but it can be revealed that Ms Holden has long had a dim view of Ms Osbourne due to the way she treated her boyfriend Dannii Minogue on the X Factor in 2007.
At the time, Ms Minogue, the younger sister of pop icon Kylie, revealed that Ms Osbourne shouted abuse at her in her dressing room, reducing her to tears just minutes before she was due to appear on stage.
A source close to the situation said: ‘Amanda and Dannii have been friends for years and they are very fond of each other.
‘Although Amanda has met Sharon a few times and Amanda is very fond of her, she knows what happened between her and Dannii, and she doesn’t like it very much. Sharon was mean to Dannii, Amanda was aware of it.’
What remains to be seen is what Cowell makes of his television wives’ public demolition.
“Oh, he will absolutely love it,” said an insider.